Regarding Photon Torpedo
Glow

There is an unbroken chain of evidence which shows that the size of a torpedo's shield
glow frequently increases rapidly after launch, to several meters in width.

This core glow of a torpedo (i.e. the glow minus
'streamers') is, as we all know, not the torpedo itself. The coffin-sized torpedo
casings have been repeatedly shown, and there's been no apparent change in that
basic size from early photonic torpedoes of the 2150's to photon torpedoes of
the 2370's.

The core glow size growth it isn't based
on torpedo type, either . . . it happens with all the various photon torpedoes we've
seen. The
increase rate itself seems to be somewhat variable (i.e. you can't say that the
torpedo will be X size at X meters from the ship), but the fact that it occurs
is indisputable. Of course, my opponents insist on disputing it even
after seeing this page, and thus the page has grown to include an almost absurd
number of examples. The examples below are not the only ones available by
any means, but instead constitute merely a sample.

From the very first episode with Starfleet photonic
torpedoes being fired, we've seen the glow growth effect. First, take a
look at the first observed photonic torpedo fired from the aft launcher (visible
on the hull as a rectangle on the lower part of the pod between the impulse
engines:

Now, observe the use of aft torpedoes from later in
the same episode:

The torpedoes have clearly expanded on
their way back to the pursuing Klingon bird-of-prey. Indeed, if you
compare the two images with the first shot above, the torpedoes appear to be
similar in apparent size (where "apparent size" refers to a
simple 2-D viewing of the picture as if it is flat and not representative of 3-D
information). And yet, the torpedoes in the two images are at a far
greater actual 3-D distance from the observation point (i.e. the
camera).

It's certainly worth noting, also,
that as the torpedoes are being fired away from the observation point,
then this apparent glow growth cannot be due to a 3-D perspective issue.
That is to say, they aren't increasing in apparent size simply because they're
coming right for us. If anything, the torpedoes should be getting smaller.

Assuming the two torpedoes are still
between the nacelles and not a greater distance away, we can estimate their size
based on the nacelle endcaps, which are about 8.4 meters tall (assuming a
225-meter NX-01). The torpedoes are roughly equivalent in height and
probably a bit wider, giving us a pretty good estimate of their size.

The Enterprise
fires photon torpedoes against the Gorn. Note how the torpedo glow is
directly between the observation point and the ship, allowing a clear indication
of where the torpedo is (especially when you consider that, in full motion, the
torpedo is quite obviously moving straight forward, just as the phasers did
moments before).

(And no, I have no idea why there's a
trailing glowy-blob behind the main red glowy-blob. However, these
consistently appeared throughout TOS, as you can see in other images below.)

Later TOS episodes used a different stock
effect for the photon torpedoes, which happens to be the one that first appeared
as the phasers of "Balance of Terror"[TOS1]. Once again
(or, more properly, "every time we see that stock effect"), we see
that the glow is far larger than the torpedo could be. The BoT phasers,
and therefore later photon torpedoes, looked like the below images. The
first image is of the first shot, the second is the third shot . . . observe the
variability, but consistent growth:

It's worth noting that in
"Journey to Babel" the glows seen above (taken from "Balance of
Terror") were somewhat less well-defined, with the result being that it was
sometimes impossible to see the separation between the white core glow and the
purplish outer glow. This would of course result in larger torpedoes, but
in the interests of lower limits we'll pretend that they were only the same size
as the above.

A different shot featuring a similar
torpedo effect occurs in this episode, presumably another stock shot (though, if
so, I'm not certain when it first appeared). In the shot we see six
torpedoes in three bursts of two being fired, with our viewing angle being more
from the side than in other shots. In the below image two torpedoes
are visible, one having just emerged from the launcher and the other just a few
dozen meters forward of the saucer rim. The one fired first is at
least as thick as the saucer, and the second shot is already at least half that
size.

The USS Defiant (NCC-1764), having
disappeared from the normal universe in "The Tholian Web"[TOS3],
reappears over 100 years in the past, in a mirror universe.
Commandeered by the Terran Empire, the vessel's aft torpedoes are fired against
a Tholian base:

The Defiant fires forward
torpedoes. These do not expand too much, especially compared to the
other blue-white torpedoes from TOS.

As can be seen from the frame right
before impact, the torpedo appears to be about the same size as a deck on the
Vulcan cruiser. Star Trek vessel deckheights seem to generally average
around three to three-and-a-half meters, depending on the ship.

A main reason for pointing this tiny
torpedo out is to note that even some of the tiniest-observed photon torpedoes
still feature a glow that is much larger than the coffin-size
casing. Of course, even if we were to find a perfectly-coffin-sized
core glow, that still wouldn't serve to disprove the fact that core glow growth
occurs in most cases . . . it would be an exception proving the rule.

After an Enterprise phaser miss in the
Mutara Nebula, Khan responds with an aft torpedo. Note how this scene features a look at the firing from behind the launcher
toward the front of the ship, again showing that the effect is not
perspective-based.

The cannonball-yield torpedo fired by the Enterprise-A
against the surface expands quickly into a very large blob after it is
fired. This scene features a look at the firing from behind the launcher
toward the front of the ship, showing that the effect is not
perspective-based.

The Enterprise-A launches a photon torpedo against
Chang's cloaked KBoP. Though at not so great a forward-facing angle
as the ST5 shot, this one also allows us to discount perspective effects as
being the sole source of apparent torpedo glow growth.

And we have this lovely
behind-the-launcher shot of the final torpedo fired in the film, which of course
forces the same conclusion as the similar shot from The Final Frontier.

The Enterprise-D, caught in a Borg tractor beam,
attempts to damage the cube. We get an excellent side view of the
three torpedoes being fired, and we also get to see their direction of
fire. Note the slightly-starboard direction of the phasers in
the pics below, as determined by the beam origin point. The angle
off of dead-ahead is no more than about 15 degrees.

All three of the torpedoes hit the
same spot, near where the lower-aimed phaser beams strike.

As you can see, that puts the
torpedoes as being leftward of the phaser beams, which means they'd be further
away from the camera than the phasers in the Enterprise-D side view shots
above. There will indeed be some perspective distortion in the ship
shots, thanks to the fact that the torpedoes will be moving toward the camera
somewhat. However, this is relatively minor compared to the tremendous
amount of torpedo glow growth observed . . . especially when you compare it to
the phaser beams, which barely show any size increase. In the last Enterprise pic above,
the torpedo beneath the saucer has on the order of three decks worth of central
glow, making the torpedo glow area about ten meters in diameter.

The Enterprise-D takes part in a stellar rejuvenation experiment involving the
use of photon torpedoes, which are fired in quick succession at a star. In
the shot below, note the glow of the torpedo against the hull, just in front of
the ship's registry, suggesting the torpedo's location directly forward of the
launch tube.

Just by comparing that torpedo's core
glow to the Ten-Forward windows, you can see that the glow is at least 6-8
meters in size, and that doesn't even account for the additional distance from
Ten-Forward to the ship's registry. In the next image, we get a
slightly-zoomed look at a torpedo as it appears when freshly-launched, appearing
to be no more than 3 meters in size.

The Enterprise-D, in an effort to shed some light on a dark matter nebula, fires
a photon torpedo into it. This example is most useful because it
provides a very nice rear view of the torpedo launch event, once again
demonstrating that it is a very real effect, and not one based on perspective
change. In the second image below, the torpedo glow area is already
several meters across.

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That last image shows us the torpedo
at about the size we should've expected when it was fired, if glow growth were
not a reality. The third shot we see of it indicates a torpedo that is
just frickin' huge, approaching 15 meters in diameter, at least.

Quantum torpedoes also demonstrate
this effect. Observe below the shots from the Defiant in the episode
of the same name. Launched from the small apertures just inboard of the
triangular structures on the saucer, the torpedoes quickly achieve a much larger
glow size:

Believing that any example of a small torpedo is sufficient cause to ignore
torpedo glow growth, opponents often point to this episode. A Trabe
shuttle engages in a weak attempt to assassinate the Kazon leadership, which was
meeting with Voyager and Trabe personnel in a building on the
surface. We can scale the event based on the window of the
room, seen below. It is somewhat less than two meters in height, as
it would be viewed from the outside.

As you can see, the Trabe shuttle is
about 9 meters in length, and fires a number of short weapon bursts into the
room. Voyager promptly fires three torpedoes at the shuttle, driving it
off. The first of those hits looks like this a frame before impact:

The central glow of this torpedo is
about three meters in size, or a third of the size of the Kazon vessel.
Given that the casket-sized casing of the torpedo is about two meters long, then
the glow we see above must be almost hugging the casing.

When fired, the torpedoes looked like
this:

Compare the above with the
"Rise" shots, especially the torpedoes exiting the portside tube (on
our right-hand side). It's readily apparent that the glow growth was
not nearly as extensive . . . the second torpedo, seen above obscuring the
bottom of Voyager's saucer, is (at ten frames since firing) about the same
objective size as the Rise torp at three frames after firing.

Thus, these torpedoes have a glow that
starts small and stays that way all the way to impact, a situation far different
than that observed in "Rise" and other examples. Why would there
be a difference? Well, we know these torps were of far lesser yield
(weaker, even, than the ST5 torp), and we also know that they entered
atmosphere. Between the two, the most reasonable position regarding these
torpedoes is that they maintained a small profile for atmospheric entry.
However, even by comparing the torpedo out of the tube versus the hit to the
Trabe vessel, we can see that there was limited glow growth after firing.

(Far from disproving the Rise torpedo
size or the existence of glow growth, this example reinforces both concepts.)

This, of course, is the primary example which the opponents loathe, and it was therefore
the primary one argued about for awhile. I include it in the list of
supporting examples in order to point out the relevant arguments.

Now, on the "Rise" page, I
chose to assume that the torpedo had been fired toward port, toward the camera,
though there is no evidence for this. Now, look at the torpedo moments
after its emergence from the tube:

You can see the innermost flare of the
torpedo, surrounded by a not-so-bright core glow. Yet, nevertheless, even
in this short space of time, the torpedo core glow is already much larger than
just an unfired torpedo casing.

Below, I show how one can scale the
torpedo off of the deflector, based on a relatively low perspective-distortion model shot
and the accepted width of the Intrepid Class ship. (Note: I say
"relatively low" because that's the best shot I have of the physical
model, which appears to have been used in "Rise". The first
image below is a perspective-free shot of the Voyager CGI model used by
Foundation Imaging, shown for comparison. Thus, my glow size estimate is
rather conservative.)

And, one can easily note the rapid
change involved in the following series. The measured frame above is the
same as the middle frame below:

As you can see, the torpedo glow size
increases very quickly in this case. Given the conservative size estimate
of 5.7 meters for the torpedo glow in the middle frame, the latter appears to
show us a torpedo 7-8 meters in diameter.

Deep Space Nine, under attack by
Dominion and Cardassian forces in the opening battles of the Dominion War, shows
off a bit of torpedo glow growth. The first image is of a torpedo
freshly-fired from the new launch assemblies first seen in "Way of the
Warrior"[DSN4]. The second image is a wider view of a torpedo
being fired. Comparing the glow from the second shot to the glow of the
first with the vertical wrap-around phaser assembly (i.e. the big oval thing the
torpedo comes out the middle of) as reference, the torpedo glow expands by a factor
of about five after launch. While scaling from DS9 is difficult, we can
presume that if the first image shows a 1.5m torpedo glow (which is a decent
ballpark estimate), the second must show a glow of 7.5 meters.

Additional support is seen in regards to two other
torpedo firings from the same battle, both of which are seen from the rear.

With the third image just above, the three torps
seen fired in the scene emerge with such velocity that it's impossible to get a
perfect scaling. But as you can see, the torpedo glow size, even at the
dozens/hundreds of meters it has travelled in the one frame since launch, is
around the same apparent size as the pop-out circular feature on the side of the
weapons sail. With the fourth contrast-enhanced image, a torpedo is
visible against the fireball beyond, being fired against the Galor in the upper
right. Again, that torpedo is around the same apparent size as the
circular feature, in keeping with the 7.5 meter figure.

Voyager, while travelling through slipstream, fires on a fake
Federation starship. Below, I have a vidcap of the event, giving a
clear view of torpedo core glow growth (especially in the latter shots, where
we're almost looking up toward Voyager.

H&Ftorps.avi (240k DivX)

Further, the pic below
demonstrates the size increase of torpedoes fired from Voyager:

Note, if you will, that the second torpedo's illumination of the hull
can be observed, approximately placing it directly under the port phaser strip's
forward edge. By eyeball estimate compared to Voyager's forward docking port, the
torpedo's main spherical glow is, at this point, approximately 10 meters wide.
Even if we compare to the entire vertical surface of the saucer rim, the torpedo
width is greater than it is by a factor of three, giving an absolute (but
ridiculous) minimum of six meters. The torpedo thus appears significantly broader
than it would've been when exiting the tube. Further, it is also
significantly broader than it was mere moments beforehand, when a mere 60-70
meters further away:

Of course, various debates have shown me that there are many people
(especially my opponents, curiously enough) who are incapable of grasping issues
of spatial orientation without a lot of help. Thus, in a prior debate, I
created the following image regarding the rear-most torpedo seen in the pics
above.

I have, in the above, provided a
general gist of how one would determine the location of the second torpedo.
Using a side-view of the Intrepid class as found at Ex Astris Scientia, I have
projected various 3-D elements into a simpler 2-D form.

The vertical bars represent the torpedo's glow on the hull, sized roughly to be
in keeping with the apparent (i.e. 2-D) size of the torpedo in the
picture. It is dropped down from the hull location to allow for the next step.

The diagonal bars are drawn from the areas of the ship's hull which are obscured
by the torpedo, and follow the rough angle of the ship as we are observing it.

The lighter area (where I've circled) is about where the torpedo is, give or
take a bit (i.e. don't go trying to claim anything too specific off of the
"general gist" picture.)

Now, in a 2-D sense (i.e. just measuring the pixels), the torpedo grows by a
factor of about two in that shot. As we can see from my diagram, it could not
have travelled more than a quarter the length of the ship to accomplish this, or
even close to a quarter.

For the 2-D growth to be simply 3-D perspective effect, the rest of the ship
would have to similarly distort by a factor of two over a similar length of the
ship . . . we don't see that. What we do see is that the entire length of
the starship is not perspective-distorted by that amount . . . the forward areas
are at best 150% of the size of the rear, not 200%.

Even the smallish torpedoes of Insurrection demonstrate this
growth. Below, you can see the aft torpedo fired from an unspecified
location. (Graham Kennedy of DITL thinks it might've been fired from the aft
launcher near the keel of the ship, but there appears to be a torpedo-tube-sized
aperture on the engineering hull spine, near the shuttlebay . . .but that's
neither here nor there.)

Even if we try to forget that the
torpedo was launched aftward and is thus further away than the bridge terraces,
just comparing its core glow directly to those terraces yields a minimum size of
about two decks, or 4-5 meters. The innermost flare alone is on the order
of 2-3 meters in size. And again, I reiterate that those sizes do
not even begin to account for the distance of the torpedo, which at this point
should be a kilometer or two away from the camera.

Below, we have another view of just
how much growth is occurring. The torpedo has just been fired, and
is thus far closer to the camera. You can even see glow against the trails
the nacelles are leaving. The core glow would be an absolute
barest-minimum of five meters in diameter in the image if we ignore the third
dimension, but since it is somewhat difficult to find anything good to scale
with in this image, I can't be more exact.

Approximate Core Glow Size:
5-7 meters

As shown, there are numerous examples
of photon torpedo shield glow size increase all across the board, with torpedoes
ranging from 3 to at least 15 meters in size. The most important
example for my purposes, "Rise", shows a torpedo that is already
almost six meters in size after barely having left the torpedo tube, and it only
gets bigger. (It's also interesting to note that the photon
torpedoes of Nemesis, the movie in which ships have hull-hugging
conformal shields, do not exhibit similar glow characteristics, showing neither
growth nor streamers.)

Thus, both the thesis of glow growth
and my argument on the "Rise" page have merit. The
opposing view, created purely in the hopes of disputing the "Rise" yield
values, does not.

Special thanks to The Model Builder's
Reference Vault for the Voyager CGI image, and to Flare poster "blssdwlf"
for providing way more Star Trek V caps than anyone could ever want. And, of course, special thanks to Ex Astris
Scientia for the Voyager model shot and side-view.